Sparta, IL has a B safety grade (71/100) with a violent crime rate of 169 per 100,000, 52% below the national average.
FBI UCR 2024 · per-capita rates · small city
Sparta is a small municipal reporter (4,749 on the UCR row). Per-100,000 violent and property rates are shown with IL and U.S. context.
Data updated 2026-08-24
Sparta, IL carries a PlainCrime B safety grade with violent crime 52% below the U.S. average
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program for 2024, Sparta, IL shows violent crime at 168.5 per 100,000 residents and property crime at 1,431.9 per 100,000. Violent crime runs 52% below the U.S. average. PlainCrime assigns grade B from those rates. Figures are voluntary agency submissions joined to population denominators; incomplete coverage can move the number.
Small-count caution
Sparta reported 8 violent offences in 2024 against a population of 4,749. At this volume one additional or one fewer report moves the per-100,000 rate noticeably, so the figure is better read as a data point than as a precise measurement, and year-to-year swings here are expected.
Comparable rate records
The nearest comparable 2024 records to Sparta's 168.5 violent-crime rate per 100,000 are Lincoln (169.0), Crete (169.1), Elmwood Park (169.4), Fairmount (170.1). These are same-year agency submissions that pass the same completeness screen, not a claim that the cities have identical conditions. They make the cohort position above checkable against named records instead of a generic state average.
Position in the state cohort
At 168.5 reported violent offenses per 100,000 residents in 2024, Sparta ranks 179 of 506 — above 327 of the 505 other Illinois cities whose 2024 submission passes this site’s completeness test. That is +69.0% against the cohort median of 99.7. Cities that did not report, or that reported implausibly low totals, are excluded from this cohort rather than counted as low-crime.
Property counts dominate Sparta's FBI UCR Table 8 municipal row. Per-100,000 rates use the reporting-year population on that row; cities that fail the completeness test stay out of rate rankings. A citywide figure rarely describes any single neighbourhood inside the municipal boundary.
Based on 8 reported violent incidents in a population of 4,749. At this volume, one additional or one fewer report can shift the rate and letter grade noticeably; small-city crime counts are inherently more volatile year to year than large-city counts, so treat this grade as a data point, not a precise ranking.
Small-city offense counts above are voluntary UCR submissions, not neighbourhood advice. Year-to-year swings can look large when the population base is modest.
Across 11.2 Census sq mi, Sparta logged 6.1 property and 0.7 violent offenses per square mile in 2024.
Sparta's 2024 book concentrates in larceny-theft (64% of 76 offenses; mix index 4,752).
Violent offenses are only 11% of the municipal total - a property-led book.
Sparta offense mix (2024)
Density uses Census Gazetteer land area (11.2 sq mi); mix index is HHI x 10,000 on the offense-type shares above. Distinct from the per-100K rates in the hero.
| Offense | Count | Rate /100K |
|---|---|---|
| Property Crime | 68 | 1431.9 |
| Larceny-Theft | 49 | 1031.8 |
| Burglary | 17 | 358 |
| Motor Vehicle Theft | 2 | 42.1 |
| Arson | 1 | 21.1 |
| Violent Crime | 8 | 168.5 |
| Aggravated Assault | 7 | 147.4 |
| Rape | 1 | 21.1 |
| Murder | 0 | 0 |
| Robbery | 0 | 0 |
Lead series · fell across 5 comparable years · FBI UCR
Secondary series · fell · 2020-2024 · FBI UCR
| Year | Coverage | Population | Violent Rate | Property Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Comparable | 4,270 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Comparable | 4,193 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Comparable | 4,681 | 363.2 | 683.6 |
| 2023 | Comparable | 4,809 | 249.5 | 1414 |
| 2024 | Comparable | 4,749 | 168.5 | 1431.9 |
Sparta Police Department filed the 2024 UCR row behind Sparta's 76 reported offenses (5-year span 2020-2024).
This agency reports via NIBRS, the incident-based system that captures more detail per offense (multiple crimes per incident, victim/offender data) than the older summary counts.
Crime rates read differently at different scales, so these are the Illinois cities closest to Sparta in population. Their populations run from 4,603 to 4,757, against 4,749 here. Or use our side-by-side compare tool to benchmark two cities directly.
Sparta sits at 168.5/100K violent (grade B); the Illinois cities below are the nearest matches after size peers are removed.
In 2024, Sparta reported 8 violent crimes and 68 property crimes, for a total of 76 reported offenses.
From 2023 to 2024, Sparta's violent crime rate decreased by 32.5%, and the property crime rate increased by 1.3%.
The most common crime type in Sparta is larceny-theft, accounting for 64.5% of all reported crimes (49 incidents in 2024).
Small-city read: Sparta is sourced from FBI UCR Table 8 for 2024; rates use that row's population.
Small-city rows use the same per-100,000 formula; a few unreported years can leave gaps in the trend table. Verify the agency's submission on FBI.gov UCR.
Disclaimer (small city): UCR counts here are informational only. They are not a victimization probability. Source: FBI UCR Program.
Small-city rate methodology for how Sparta's small city row is sourced and ranked.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program CIUS Table 8 municipal crime rates · 2024 Sparta, IL rates use the reporting-year population on the municipal row.
Bulk download: city crime dataset (CSV/JSON)
Every figure on PlainCrime is rendered directly from FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) source data, no number is typed in by an editor. Sparta is scored as a small-city UCR reporter (4,749 on the row). See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error.